St. Anselm is a Williamsburg grill parlor opened by the same crew behind [Fette Sau] (http://www.theinfatuation.com/new-york/reviews/fette-sau) and Spuyten Duyvel, the beloved beer bar next door. They've transformed the corner of Metropolitan and Havemeyer into quite the culinary destination, by understanding how to create an environment conducive to high quality hanging out, aided by delicious, sharable eats, carefully crafted booze choices, and good taste in music.

St. Anselm might look like a bar from the outside, but the reason you're coming here has nothing to do with the drinks or the service (which isn't very good), and everything to do with the Butchers Steak and Pan-Fried Mashed Potatoes. Those two things are incredible. Nothing else we had was equally mind-blowing, but overall the food was definitely impressive and reasonably affordable for the quality. Go with friends and be prepared to share. We didn't have the balls to order the head-on baby chicken, but if you do, please Tweet a photo our way.

Bottom Line: throwing a bunch of meat on the grill is never a bad idea. It may be simple, but simple food can sometimes be the hardest to pull off. Saying that St. Anselm nailed the Butchers Cut steak would be a tremendous understatement. They absolutely destroyed it.

Food Rundown

Pan-Fried Mashed Potatoes

This could be the best potato dish that exists in NYC. Holy sh*t, this is nuts. The mashed potatoes are cooked with truffle oil and pan fried, resulting in a crispy outer layer, but deliciously mushy and moist in the middle. A win in both the texture and taste departments.

Bib Lettuce with shallot vinaigrette

We needed some green to balance out all the meat we had ordered, and it turned out that this bibb salad was really damn good. The shallot vinaigrette dressing was also tasty.

Spinach Gratin

Nothing crazy out of the ordinary, but you can't go wrong with a well executed side of spinach.

Shishito Peppers

We're spoiled. We've been eating South Edison's shishito's all summer and these don't match up. They were just a little too lemon zesty for our liking.

Saddle (London Chop)

Outstanding. This ranks right up there with just about any lamb chop I've ever had. The pieces of meat literally melted in your mouth. The mint yogurt seemed a little weird in theory, but it actually worked quite well, and added some extra flair to the big chunk of meat. Definitely order this.

Butchers Steak

Think about that celebrity piece of meat you want a slice of really really badly. For pretty much every girl on the planet, that'd be Ryan Gosling right about now. This heavenly cut of meat is that person, only in the form of an actual piece of beef. It's that good looking. Perfection, actually. This medium-rare hanger steak is soaked in butter and garlic, and is the main attraction here at St. Anselm. Order and go home happy.

Bourbon Brined Center Cut Chop

The pork chop was the most disappointing dish of the night. It was 60% fat, a little chewy and overall just not that much fun to eat. Finding a really good piece took a lot of work, and wasn't worth the time commitment. You can do better.

Whole Trout

We couldn't find it in our hearts to order any fish here. It just seemed like a crime with all that good meat on the menu. However, we've had a couple of people on Twitter call out the whole trout, and we will do our best to fight our instincts and order it next time we come through.

Dessert

We had some strawberries and marshmallow thing that sounded interesting on paper, but was really quite bad in reality. Order another Butcher Cut instead.